One Less Bubble Team: MD, Thanks For Playing

I have been a BYU fan my whole life, and you are right: nobody in Provo cares about the agriculturalists. And—memo to you guys—neither do any of the U of U fans. Yeah, you have a great basketball tradition, but when every school in the Mountain West considers BYU their biggest rival, it’s hard for us cougar fans to get all revved up for a non-conference foe two and half hours away. We understand your hatred (three quarters of your student body were probably denied admission to BYU), but we frankly don’t care.

Sorry.

Don’t flatter yourself too much. At least half of USU’s student body could have gotten into BYU if they wanted to, but chose the “agriculturalist” school instead. The fact that you guys still think of us like that goes to show just how out-of-touch you are. The college of Agriculture is now one of the smallest on campus.

And no where did anyone say that we expect Utah State to be BYU’s biggest rival. Any idiot can see that the BYU-Utah feud is one of the biggest in the country. And again, don’t flatter yourself into thinking you’re the only school we’re rivals with; we hate Utah just as much as BYU!

If you don’t care, fine. We’re up to four in a row against “God’s University” and it won’t stop until you guys take us seriously.

2003: USU 76, BYU 74
2004: USU 71, BYU 57 (in Logan)
2004: USU 84, BYU 62 (in Provo)
2005: USU 91, BYU 80

Well, I don’t “flatter myself.” Sorry, I was just basing my numbers on the fact that probably about 75% of the people I know that go or have gone to Utah State (and that’s a lot of people) tried to get into BYU. That’s all.

As for the fact that this is a one-sided rivalry, you are spot on. I don’t know why BYU fans don’t care about Utah State. The fact of the matter is, I root for the agriculturalists in all of their games except for against BYU, and I know a bunch of other cougar fans who do as well. Frankly, I find it ironic that agriculturalist fans hate us and “everything we stand for” when the vast majority of students and faculty at that school have the exact same values as BYU students do. The bitterness must come from somewhere. Is it a perceived “holier than thou” attitude? Is it the fact that we stole your colors, even though they are actually different? Is it the fact that our football team doesn’t play yours anymore (which is just as much USU’s fault as BYU’s, by the way.)? I just don’t get it.

I mean, I can see your hatred against the U of U. Their so-called 350 fans are all a pain in everyone’s neck.

And we are glad that you guys got such a kick out of BYU’s 7-point loss in the Las Vegas Bowl, especially coming off your aggies’ 2-win season or whatever it was. Again, I just don’t get it. I don’t think I ever heard a single BYU fan ever laugh at the fact that USU lost a game. But whatever.

It’s the arrogant attitude BYU carries that causes all the hatred.

*The fact that you guys think that nine out of 10 mormons in this country desperately want to go to BYU and all the other colleges in Utah are full of the rejects.

*It’s the fact that you call us “agriculturalists” out of sheer ignorance (or just to piss us off).

*It’s the fact that your football team stopped playing us because of “strength of schedule”, but then you play Northern Kentucky and then send a letter out to EVERY OTHER D-IA SCHOOL in the country to see if they could set up a home-and-home series for the next two years.

*It’s the fact that you act like USU is off in the middle of nowhere when it’s just a two-and-a-half hour drive from your campus.

*It’s the fact that you guys refuse to acknowledge that there is anything, in any way shape or form, at USU that is even as good as what BYU has, let alone better.

And every time someone points these things out, BYU acts all innocent, like it can’t understand why anyone would hate “God’s University.”

(By the way, moboman, none of this is personal. You just asked. The funny thing is that I was a die-hard BYU fan until I got to USU. And before you assume otherwise, I WAS accepted to Provo, but chose here instead.)

We call you agriculturalists because you are the Aggies. What do you think Aggies is short for?

And the “football email” that BYU sent out is actually quite common. BYU’s AD got the idea because they had received several similar emails from other schools. By the way, they DID send one of those emails to Utah State’s athletic director—that’s how USU happened to learn about it, and why they went crying to the press. Here’s the thing that Utah State’s football program should be worried about: the fact that the email thing was a new concept. Was the email from BYU the first one they had ever received? I would consider it a bad sign when no other program had even thought about including the aggies on their email list.

I don’t take any of your attack on BYU personal. I went to BYU, and I have no hatred for the aggies. And I know that BYU students aren’t all pompous and everything. Duh, I have tons of friends who go to Utah State, and I don’t consider myself “above them.” I was just wondering why you guys hate us and “everything we stand for.” Yeah, we take pride in our school, but what are we supposed to do, constantly acknowledge that Utah State has a better nursing program, a better education program, a better agriculture program, and a competitive engineering program, among others? When BYU brags about having the state’s (and one of the West’s) best law school, best accounting and business programs, and best engineering program, USU doesn’t need to have a cow (no pun intended).

A couple of more items:

1. Logan IS in the middle of nowhere, and to get there in the middle of December means undoubtedly driving through a blizzard in Sardine Canyon, which is one of the craziest things I have ever done. :-)
2. Congrats on the basketball victory. I guess we can agree that the so-called ‘rivalry’ is one-sided—in both football and basketball, and in both results and fan interest.

To close this out about the football team, we didn’t think it was a new concept at all. That’s what you have to do sometimes in order to get games. We understand that. But when you have a team within driving distance (the canyon isn’t snow-covered in September) that wants to play you and is making absolutely no secret about it, but you say no thanks and then send a letter like that out to everybody else, it really sends a message that your football program is going out of its way to avoid USU. Ending a 100 year old series with an in-state opponent because it’s having a few bad years is stupid.

We in Logan do think it’s somewhat ironic that this season was your first with a winning record since you stopped playing us. As soon as you guys decide to play a tough schedule is when you really needed to be playing teams like USU.

At least I can’t confuse you as being a USU football optimist. :-)

By the way, I hope you guys win the WAC. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t beat every team at home and at least half of the road games.

If everyone at BYU thought of USU like you did, there wouldn’t be a problem!